Will PSD-based Character Illustration Work on Moho 12

[vivekchakraverty]

I came upon this very useful tutorial set created by Lost Marble regarding setting up and animating PSD based characters in Moho. However there is a postscript, it is intended for user of Moho 13.5 and above. I have Moho 12. Will i benefit from the tutorial. The link to the tutorial is:

https://moho.lostmarble.com/products/an ... er-in-moho

[Greenlaw]

Hi! Moho Pro 12.5 supports Layered PSD files. This feature was significantly improved for Moho 13.5 and 14.x.

In 12.5, it works okay but it's a bit fussy when it comes to editing the file in your paint program after you import and bind it in Moho. The main issue was that 12.5 relies only on layer ID to track the layers, so if the ID changes by merging, adding, or deleting a layer in your paint program, the rig will break in Moho. Tip: When merging two layers in Photoshop, make sure the new layer is on top and the original layer (the one used in Moho) is on the bottom because the bottom layer's ID is the one Photoshop will keep. (Double-check this; it's been a long time since I used 12.5, and I may have this backward.) This feature in 12.5 is safe to use so long as you're aware of it's limitations and pitfalls. For some users, the convenience was worth the risk.

Back when I used Moho 12.5, I found it better to export layers as PNG from the paint program. In this case, Moho uses the filename to ID the layers, so when the paint program overwrites a layer, Moho simply reloads the new version. No muss, no fuss! In Photoshop, use the free third-party plugin called Export Photoshop Layers To Files Fast. I use this tool all the time for a variety of reasons, including layers for Moho. In Krita, there is a script in the menus that works similarly. The Krita version is not nearly as robust as the Photoshop script but it does the job.

In Moho 13.5 and 14.x, Moho first uses layer names to ID the layers, which has made the feature much more useful. If the layer names change, Moho will then fall back to using layer IDs. I highly suggest giving your paint program layers short descriptive names and being consistent with them. Ever since this feature was updated, I've been using layered PSD routinely in Moho, and haven't seen a problem yet. (I still like to use PNG in certain situations.)

I hope this helps. One of the upcoming tutorials on our Little Green Dog Channel will cover this topic in further detail. You can see a little bit of this feature in action in the Intro video to the tutorial series.

[vivekchakraverty]

Thanks a lot!